How to Empower Every Member of Your Team

I’m mostly a black and white kind of guy.  There’s good, there’s bad.  There’s right, there’s wrong.  There’s proper behavior, there’s stupid behavior.  You succeed, or you fail; and you don’t blame anyone else.

So when I heard the term “Situational Leadership” I thought, Holy cow, another feel-good, politically correct excuse for not performing. I was wrong – way wrong.

Situational Relationship Behavior is the extent to which the leader engages in 2-way communication; in other words, your interaction with people.

High relationship means you’re highly engaged.  You’re giving them additional training and support on an ongoing basis.  You’re interacting with them quite frequently.

Low relationship behavior means that you’re not as engaged in 2-way communication.

Task Behavior is the extent to which the leader is engaged in spelling out the duties and responsibilities.  High task behavior means the manager is more detailed and directive toward telling the subordinate step-by-step what to do.

Low task behavior is when the manager assigns the task, delegates the task, and is not involved with actually getting the job done.

A new employee (team member) typically starts in Q1 (see picture) and the manager does a lot of Telling (high task, low relationship).  There is a lot of instruction showing them how to do the job.  You’re not patting them on the back yet because they haven’t shown anything yet.  You’re teaching and training them, so there is not a lot of relationship behavior.

After a few months, the new employee is making some progress and it’s time to move from telling to Selling (high task, high relationship).   The manager is still directing and showing, but the communication is more 2-way.  The manager gives a lot of reinforcement while explaining, clarifying and persuading.  The manager is mining for ideas from the team member and teaching them to think on their own.  The leader still defines the roles and tasks, but seeks ideas and suggestions.  The leader pats them on the back.  The more you can guide them to thinking things out the more beneficial it is to you in the future.

As the individual grows, it’s time for the manager to move from selling to Participating (high relationship, low task).  The person understands the job and knows how to do it, but doesn’t have a lot of confidence yet.  They need reinforcement on an ongoing basis until they develop confidence.  The manager gives the individual a lot of support, pats him on the back, and stays very close.  Because the individual knows the job, there is much less directive behavior from the manager.

As the team member becomes more and more competent, he becomes a true expert at the job and the manager moves to Empowering (low relationship, low task).  The team member is doing 80% or more of the talking during the PDI.  The manager is observing, monitoring, reinforcing, and delegating.

Your goal as the manager is to get your staff to Quadrant 4, but as the arrows in the graph above show, it’s not a one-way street.  Depending on the job or task, you may move down or up a quadrant, or even two – and sometimes even three.

In one of my businesses, one of my vice presidents is fabulous at her job and my management style is almost always empowering.  But she’s not a numbers person, so when it comes to working with numbers my management style moves to Participating and sometimes to Selling or even Telling.  With her it was not uncommon for me to say, “That number doesn’t make sense, check it out.”

It’s also important to understand that you’re working with people, not machines.  We all have personal lives away from business and for all of us, our personal lives influence us at work.  Sometimes it’s critically important to move down a quadrant when a team member has personal problems.

Leaving your empathy and understanding behind, you have a lot invested in someone who’s in Q4.  Moving up on the relationship scale to Participating or even to Selling is sometimes critical to get that person back up to speed.  And, of course, if things get worse you may need to move to Telling with get this done or you’ll be fired.

For a complete discussion of Situational Leadership get my book Performance Reviews Suck for FREE. I just ask that you help with postage and handling by paying $2.97.

Click here to get the book.

Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You

Checking it Off My Bucket List Today!

The picture above shows my ride for the next two days.

This is a big one for me… Heli-skiing with my daughter Jenny, and son Travis.

Living your bucket list now, and not waiting, is one of the best reasons to implement The Make-You-Happy Management System in your business. The system is called the Make-You-Happy Management System because it makes your customers happy, your employees happy, your managers happy, your vendors happy and most importantly, you and your family happy.

Every once in a while when I’m on an interview in podcast, coaches call tele-seminar or webinar, I’m asked, “What accomplishment are you most proud of?” My response is, “My 42 year marriage to my high school sweat heart Patty.” Then I ask, “Can I share one more with you?” The answer, of course in always, “Yes.”

Here’s my second accomplishment that I’m most proud of. “Skiing has always been huge in our family. My wife Patty and I met on the ski bus in high school. The kids started really young and we skied a lot. Now both of our grand kids started skiing when they were two – actually Whitney was 22 months. We skied in the Cascades, about an hour from our house, and took another ski vacation most every year. Today we have a vacation home that’s 16 miles from our favorite ski area.

While it may not be an accomplishment, this represents what is most important to me. When Travis was a senior in college he asked if he and I could go on a ski vacation for his last spring break. While his friends were partying in Hawaii or Florida he wanted to go skiing with me. Then two years later when Jenny was graduating from college she also asked to go skiing with me. I knew when they both asked me to go skiing with them on their last spring break that I did it right by making sure my businesses ran properly so that I could live my bucket list while they were growing up and not miss out at being a dad.”

If you want to discover how to create a business that gets better whether you’re there or not, so you can live your bucket list now go to https://keithlee.com/freedom-for-business-owners and watch the video.

P.S. Today I own three businesses. Travis runs the biggest of the three and all of the businesses run so well that were going skiing together for three days this week; and then our entire family Travis his wife Jen, their kids Carson and Whitney, Patty my wife, and Jenny our daughter, are going to Mexico for the first week in April, and all three businesses will continue to improve while were gone.

Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You

Keith Lee
Keith@KeithLee.com

It Starts and Ends with Trust

How to Get Your Team to Open Up… It Starts and Ends with Trust

I learned a number of great lessons from my mentor, retired ex-partner, and founder of American Retail Supply; Dick Thompson.  One of the best was, “When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.”

As I share this story with you, please understand that 3 fingers are pointing back at me.  This was one of my biggest failures as the president of our company.  In hindsight, I should have done a much better job making sure this manager understood and truly bought into the Make-You-Happy Management System and its reliance on team member participation.

Middle management can be a particular challenge with the Make-You-Happy Management System, especially when that manager has previously managed in a business that does not practice Z-theory management (participative management).  It can really be a challenge when the middle manager has previously leaned towards X Theory (authoritarian management).

It’s critical that your middle managers understand and buy into Z-Theory Management when you use The Make-You-Happy Management System.

When I owned American Retail Supply, our headquarters were in Kent, Washington, and we had distribution and sales offices in Denver, Dallas, and Honolulu.  One of our division managers asked me this question, “When facilitating a MAT, how do you get the ball rolling when you’re just staring at blank faces?  I just sometimes feel like people have enough energy to complain, but are unwilling to use their energy to help solve the problem or think of a positive/better solution.”

When he sent me this email, he had been with us for almost a year.  I had been working with him on this and other, similar issues and I knew what the problem was.

I would normally not put this type of answer in an email, but I wasn’t making much progress and I thought it was time to put our previous discussions in writing.  Maybe that would get through.  Here’s my answer: “The problem you express above is a symptom, not the disease.  The disease is they don’t believe you’re sincere when you tell them you want their input.  In other words, they don’t trust you.

Think back to us talking at the show in Las Vegas.  You said that you do this to show you’re decisive, or you do that to show that you’re understanding or fair.

That’s when we talked about a silly management philosophy that says that a new manager should come in strong and tough and you can then back off after you get respect.  That’s what I perceived that you were thinking and doing when you started managing.

I told you that was a bad idea.  A good manager should come in and be appropriate and fair to show that you are appropriate and fair.  Once you get their trust and show them that you really want to listen and be their coach, cheerleader, facilitator and nurturer of champions and not a cop, devils advocate, pronouncer and nay-sayer they will open up.

If they don’t open up, it’s because they don’t trust you.  They don’t see you as a coach, cheerleader, facilitator and nurturer of champions.  People open up to coaches, cheerleaders, facilitators and nurturers of champions.  They don’t open up to cops, devil’s advocates, pronouncers and nay-sayers.

As we’ve continued to talk since Las Vegas I still hear you saying that you said this to show you’re decisive, or you do that to show that you’re understanding or fair.  That’s being manipulative –  not being a coach, cheerleader, facilitator and nurturer of champions.

Again, you need to do what is right and appropriate because it is right and appropriate – not to be decisive, or strong or anything else.

Ask yourself this question, what have you done consistently with each and every person in your division to show that you are a coach, cheerleader, facilitator and nurturer of champions?  It is absolutely critical that you think of this from their point of view and not from the “I do this to show I’m that” point of view.

My first suggestion is to look in the index of the Team Handbook in the Make-You-Happy Management System under “meeting tools and techniques – warm-ups”.  There are ideas in there to get involvement.

Again, that’s going to be tough because if they don’t trust you they’ll just see that as a way to manipulate them.  I would still try it.

Ask them what things they think need to be improved, or what problems they have with getting their jobs done efficiently and effectively.

If you’re still getting nowhere try this.  Say, “In Kent they answer the phone the same way every time.

  • Greeting – “Thanks for calling”
  • Identification – “American Retail Supply”
  • What you can do for them – “How may I direct your call?”

They developed their greeting in Kent from watching a DVD by “The Telephone Doctor” who says, there are two reasons to have a greeting before you identify the company.

  • Often the person calling isn’t ready to listen right away
  • Sometimes when we answer the phone we start talking before we have the receiver all the way to our mouth

Keith asked us to come up with a similar greeting for us.  He also said when he calls he sometimes doesn’t know who he’s talking with and it would be good to hear your name in the greeting.

So, with that in mind, he asked us to come up with a greeting that would be the model for answering the phone in each division where we don’t have a dedicated receptionist to say “How may I direct your call?”

How should we answer the phone to include:

  • Greeting
  • Identification of the company and the individual
  • What you can do for them
  • If no one answers say, Bill, what do you think?  Then come up with a greeting everyone can agree on and implement it.

Here’s one I would love to see you discuss, “I want to come up with a dress code that everyone thinks is fair and appropriate for the job.  Who would like to help with this”?  This is what I suggested that you do right after you got flaked on the dress code you implemented without getting the team involved.

You decided that would show weakness.  I think it shows just the opposite, that you know you’re not perfect and you’re confident enough to admit it when you make a mistake.

Click here https://keithlee.com/freedom-for-business-owners to discover how to manage your entire team in one hour a week so you can spend your time on the important things in your business.

 

 

 

Live Your Bucket List Now

One of the things that I’ve added to my “Live Your Bucket List Now” presentation is to make sure you have items on your bucket list that require you to stay in shape as you get older.  That way, instead of working out and eat right just to stay in shape you’ve eating right and working out to LIVE YOUR BUCKET LIST

Follow this link to discover how you can Live Your Bucket List Now

If you have items on your Bucket List that require you to stay in shape you won’t be working out and watching what you eat to just stay in shape, you’ll be doing those things to Live Your Bucket List.

My bucket list included back country skiing with my daughter Jenny. That’s where you hike up the mountain and ski down.  I’ve skied to 49 years and I’ll continue to ride the chair lift and ski in bounds, but AT skiing looked pretty darned awesome.

So, about a year ago I checked, “Become an AT skier” off my Bucket List by taking a 3-day avalanche class with Jenny.

They say a picture say a thousand words, so I’ll share some with you as I go

The Make-You-Happy Management System is about YOU
Living Your Bucket List Now… are you!

I took a 3-day avalanche training class with my daughter Jenny.  In the class we learned how to be safe in the back country and how to find someone should they become buried in an avalanche.  After the class I’m confident that I can travel in the back-country safely and have a great time skiing.

Jenny’s friend Christy joined Jenny and me in the class.

Day 1

We drove up a windy private dirt road to about the 4,000 foot level of Downing Mountain outside of Hamilton Montana.  From there we skinned up the road to Downing Mountain Lodge at 5,500 feet.  (Skinning – You attach a synthetic ‘skin’ to the bottom of your skies so you can walk up the mountain without sliding back).

We didn’t know what to expect for accommodations but it turned out great.

We got our gear settled in and started our first classroom session.  We learned how to use our rescue beacons to find someone buried in the snow.  About 2pm we went outside, skinned up about 1,000 feet and practiced finding buried beacons.  As the sun was setting we skied back to the lodge, had dinner (great lasagna) and another class room session.  We started learning how to read the terrain, weather, and other things so we could have fun and STAY OUT OF AN AVALANCHE.

Day 2

Got up, had a great breakfast and another classroom session.  Then it was time to head up the mountain, learn how to read the terrain, snow pack weather, dig our avalanche pit, test the snow and ski!

We skinned from 5,500 feet to the summit of Downing Mountain at 8,000 feet.  Oh my GOD!  I don’t know if Jenny keeps me young or not, but I was sucking air and feeling every bit of my 61 years.

But… I felt absolutely incredible as I ate lunch with Jenny at the summit.  Here I am with Jenny eating lunch at 8,000 feet.  I’m the black blob leaning on the tree to the left of Jenny.

Here is most of the group getting ready to ski down and dig our avalanche pits to test the snow.

Jenny – Taking a measurement in our pit.

After a great run down to the lodge, it was time for a little relaxation, and a shot-ski.  Get it, doing shots with holes drilled into the ski to hold the shot glasses.  Daddy-daughter bonding at its best.

Day 3

This was our (the students) day to plan the ascent and the path to ski down.  The previous day got us to the summit quickly and safely so we decided to take the same route up.  On day two we skied down the same way we went up.  Today, we wanted to see if we could safely ski the huge bowl to the south of our ascent line.

Our plan was to test the snow at the top near the bowl and if it was as stable as day 2, or better, we would go to bowl, measure the inclination of the slope, and if it was 35 degrees or less, we would ski down that way.

We found that the snow was actually more stable than the previous day and the slope was about 30 degrees.  So  YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

Remember, one of the main reasons to implement the Make-You-Happy Management System is so you can Live Your Bucket List NOW!

Follow this link to discover how you can Live Your Bucket List Now

You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), How to Control Your Business and your Life, Proven Secrets to Creating Highly Productive Teams at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.

“Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You” 

Keith Lee
www.keithlee.com

Email Sucks

In many cases, email is an absolutely terrible way to communicate effectively.  In the The Happy Customer Handbook I discuss “Putting You into Every Client Contact”. 

I discuss the fact that communication experts say that body language and intonation account for 90% of effective communication.  How does email fit into body language and intonation?  It doesn’t.  Often, email communication should be called email miscommunication.

I’ve actually had people tell me they didn’t like the tone of an email they received from someone.  I asked them to send me that email.  As someone not involved in the issue I saw no tone what-so-ever.

Sure, a great writer can put tone into their writings, but to expect that a particular email, that may or may not have been hugely important to the sender, that may have been composed in a matter of seconds was sent with a particular tone is, at best, a guess. 

I often remind our team at that “Email Sucks”.  If you have something important to say and it could be taken incorrectly, “Email Sucks!”

Also, unless you’re willing to upset the recipient much more than you can imagine, you should never send an email that is negative or critical.

Another, rule of thumb that we’ve found that works is, “If you go back and forth about something with email quit typing and get on the phone, or go see the person.”

 You can get my hard copy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You for free at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  I just ask that you pay $2.97 to help cover shipping and handling.

 “Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You” 

 Keith Lee
www.keithlee.com

What Goes Around Comes Around Especially When Disaster Strikes

“How the Make-You-Happy Management System Will Help You and Your Business When Disaster Strikes”

What Goes Around Comes Around is one of my wife – Patty’s – favorite sayings, and since we’ve been together since 1970 I’ve heard her say it thousands and thousands of times.

The Make-You-Happy Management System (MYHMS) puts a huge emphasis on respect for clients and customers.  Remember, in the MYHMS clients are the people that most businesses call customers, and customers are your internal customers; team members, vendors, the FedEX guy, the mail man, etc.  This leads to treating all of these internal customers like… CUSTOMERS, and you know, what goes around comes around.

On July 20, 2003 we had a fire at our distribution center in Denver that destroyed everything.  Twenty thousand square feet of inventory, office supplies and fixtures, computer, everything gone, overnight.  I remember the date, because it happened on my 29th wedding anniversary.  Little did I know how much one of Patty’s favorite sayings would affect us over the next few months.

Let’s look at just a few aspects of the MYHMS and how they helped us during this disaster in Denver:

  • The MYHMS with its Z-theory management and emphasis on not only listening to your team members but empowering them creates team members who know they are incredibly valuable, feel appreciated. This, along with the philosophy that all of us who work in a MYHMS business are customers to each other leads to people who truly enjoy their jobs. The way the team in Denver, and our other locations pulled together to get the job done through this was amazing.
  • At the very heart of the MYHMS is a fanatical devotion to Make-You-Happy Client Service. This created loyal clients who rallied around us.
  • The idea that your vendors are your customers creates vendors who help you when you need it.

When you have all of this going for you and have a disaster you’ll truly find out that, “What Goes Around Comes Around.”

Team Members Come To The Rescue

On the sales end, we were fortunate in that we had a show room at the Denver Merchandise Mart.  We added another phone line and were up and going there right away.

Our warehouse staff was concerned that they may not be able to work while the Denver distribution center was out of commission.  I assured them that we would keep paying them.  They could have easily just sat back and collected the money over what ended up being about a month, but each of them offered to take their vacation at that time.

In addition, as soon as anything came up that they could do they went at it full speed.  They shopped for warehouse racking, found storage units, and shopped for new office furniture.

When the time came to start putting things back together the entire staff in Denver came through like gang busters to get us up and going, working weekends and extended hours.

In addition, our staff in Kent came to the rescue also.  We shipped most of the orders that would have come from our Denver distribution center out of Kent.  Like Denver, when needed, our staff in Kent worked long hours, with a great attitude to get the job done.

In addition, our entire staff, in all of our divisions, did an incredible job keeping up with all of the different shipping arrangements that needed to be arranged to take care of clients and get product to them.

I will forever be grateful to our team members… What goes around comes around.

Vendors Come To The Rescue

Our vendors were absolutely incredible!

As a distributor, we buy product in huge quantities, often truckloads.  We store these and ship them in smaller quantities when our clients need them.  Some of our vendors will allow us to drop ship smaller quantities, but they have extra charges to do this.

While we shipped a lot of orders for the mountain states and east out of Kent and charged our clients what the freight would have been from Denver, with the loss of the entire Denver inventory we didn’t have enough inventory in Kent to do this all of the time.

Our vendors came to the rescue and, every one of them, agreed to waive their minimum order quantities and extra charges and ship to our clients directly when needed.  This was a huge commitment from them and their teams as they are simply not set up to do this in the quantities that they did for us.

I will forever be grateful to our vendors… What goes around comes around.

Clients Come To The Rescue

What a time to find out how loyal our clients were!  Things took longer.  For the most part things ran well, but some things simply took longer.  It took longer for us to let them know when the order would ship because we had to be sure whether we were shipping it from Kent or the vendor, whether it was something that could drop ship from the vendor or not, and lots of other new questions.

And then it still took longer, to get the product from Kent rather than Denver.  Most often the vendor simply couldn’t get it shipped the same day like we do.

We were amazed and thankful that our clients (Continued P5 – Disaster Strikes)

stood by us.  In fact, we got letter after letter thanking us for taking such good care of them under the circumstances.

I will forever be grateful to our clients… What goes around comes around.

What Goes Around Comes Around Negatively Also

Over the years I had been approached numerous times by a business associate to buy his business.  He gave me an idea of the price he was looking for and I always told I didn’t think it would fit at the time.

One day he called me and said he wanted to sell the business.  I again told him I again that I really didn’t think it would fit.  He replied, “I’m going to make you a deal you can’t refuse.”  So, I listened.  It was a deal I couldn’t refuse.

The other owner and I had the same supplier for one of our product lines.  In our case they were a significant and good supplier.  For the other company this supplier represented the huge majority of his business.

Over the years the other owner talked to me about all of the problems he had with the supplier and in fact showed me some of their correspondence.  I couldn’t believe the derogatory tone of the letters from the owner of the business who wanted to sell to the supplier.

He certainly had no idea that he and the supplier were in fact on the same team.  He had no comprehension that he should treat a supplier like an internal customer

I found out during the negotiations to buy the business that after years of this derogatory treatment the supplier decided he simply wasn’t going to sell to the other business anymore.

And, in this case the guy who wanted to sell the business did not have an alternative supplier and it was going to take a good deal of time to find one.  The seller knew I had a good relationship with the supplier and that the supplier would sell to me if I bought the business.  The seller also knew that his list of potential buyers was very small, because the seller would not have had a relationship with the new buyer and would see it as still dealing with the old owner.  What goes around comes around.

So yes,

I got the company in a deal I couldn’t refuse

It didn’t surprise me as we trained our new team in this newly acquired business that our Make-You-Happy Management with its emphasis in respect for everyone was a foreign concept.  And it didn’t surprise me at all to learn that the old owner was very much an X-theory manager with the attitude of I’m the boss, I’m the manager, I’m the owner.  I built this business with my blood sweat and tears do what I tell you to do and that’s that!

The new team was thrilled to hear about the new management system.  What goes around comes around.

You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), How to Control Your Business and your Life, Proven Secrets to Creating Highly Productive Teams at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.

That Complainer May Be Your Next Great Leader

Here’s an excerpt from John C. Maxwell’s book, The 360 Degree Leader.

 

“Have you ever found yourself saying something like, “You know, if I were in charge, we wouldn’t have done this, and we wouldn’t have done that. Things sure would be different around here if I were the boss”? If so, let me tell you that there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the desire to improve an organization and the belief that you’re capable of doing it are often the marks of a leader. 

 

Andy Stanley said, “If you’re a leader and leaders work for you, they think they can do a better job than you. They just do (just like you do). And that’s not wrong; that’s just leadership.” The desires to innovate, to improve, to create, and to find a better way are all leadership characteristics.

 

So next time you’re complaining about that complainer, you might want to consider that she may just be what you need as a leader.

I tell our mangers in our divisions away from the home office that they, at times, need to be a pain in the butt for me.  It’s easy to tell who is and who is not really trying to improve things and grow.  They are the people who tell you things you don’t always want to hear.

 

Here’s an excerpt from an email I sent to one of our division managers who, in a previous email had apologized for “causing a problem”.

 

“Remember I told you a good division manager would be a pain in the butt at times.  You do that well. 

 

Seriously, thanks for the great comments.  I don’t need a yes lady and I certainly don’t want the responsibility for coming up with all the good ideas or fixing everything myself.”

 

Now, I wouldn’t say it like that to a newer person who didn’t know me, but I could with this division manager.

 

With The Make-You-Happy Management System you don’t just allow someone to complain, you require them to help with a solution when they see a problem.  If they are constantly coming up with problems but don’t have solutions, they just may be an immature complainer and not a true helper.  If that’s the case, you need to quickly train them to have a solution when they see a problem or fire them.   

 

But if it is someone who is uncovering true problems and opportunities to improve, that’s what the Make-You-Happy Management System is all about.  With these people, do not always require them to come up with a solution.  A huge principle in the Make-You-Happy Management System is that a few heads are better than one in solving problems and taking advantage of opportunities. 

 

But does that complainer have what it takes to be a leader?  Sure you want a leader that can recognize problems and opportunities, but they also need to be tactful.  So keep your eyes open (or maybe better yet, your ears) for that person who thinks they can do the job better than you.  You just might have a great leader.

 

Follow the link below and discover How to Control Your Business and your Life with Proven Secrets to Creating Highly Productive Teams

 

https://americanretailsupply.wistia.com/medias/jl3pr8dbpk

 

Exposed!!! Owner of Company Named, “Best Business To Work For In Washington State” is a “Ruthless Manager

It was reported today that Keith Lee, the owner of American Retail Supply, which was named the Best Small Business to Work for in Washington State by Washington CEO Magazine is a Ruthless Manager.

How is that?  How can the owner of the company named “The Best Small Business to Work for in Washington State” now be revealed as the co-author of the New Edition of No B.S. Ruthless Management of People & Profits?

It was revealed today that Dan Kennedy, the author of numerous No B.S. books, chose Keith Lee as the co-author for his newest edition of No B.S. Ruthless Management of People & Profits.

Our intrepid reporter, Lois Lane, caught up with Mr. Lee as he was sneaking into his office today and asked him how he could head the Best Business to Work for in Washington State and be a Ruthless Manager.

Mr. Lee replied… “I don’t choose the names for Mr. Kennedy’s books, and Dan and I don’t agree on everything, but when it comes to managing a business and the people in it; we agree much more than we disagree.”

Keith pointed to page 14 in the No B.S. book where Dan Kennedy writes about business owners, “And one thing they all have in common: gripes, complaints, disappointments, frustrations, pain and agony with regard to their employees.  Much of this has to do with unreasonable expectations and a misunderstanding of the actual nature of employer-employee relationships.  Some of it lies squarely at the fault of the business owner for failing in one or more of the Three Requirements for Having Employees: Leadership, Management, Supervision.”

Mr. Lee continued, “While I don’t think the nature of the employer-employee relationship need be as adversarial as Dan, the expectations and the nature of the relationship needs to be addressed during the employees’ first day of employment.  With our DVD training business owners who use our Make-You-Happy Management System set those expectations during the first hour of employment.”

Mr. Lee agrees wholeheartedly with Mr. Kennedy’s statement that business owners failing in one or more of the Three Requirements for Having Employees is the cause of many of their headaches.

Mr. Lee says, “Business owners usually lead, manage and supervise as they were led, managed and supervised, or how they learned in business school; neither of which work very well.”

Performance Reviews Suck

Mr. Lee pointed to Performance Management.  Every business owner knows that they need a Performance Management System but the only type of system they know about is Performance Reviews and they know that Performance Reviews Suck.  With this the business owner continues with Performance Reviews knowing that they suck, or they stop them altogether, and are left with no Performance Management System.

Mr. Lee informed this reporter than Dan Kennedy agrees that Performance Reviews are “like looking in your rearview mirror to drive your car.”  Mr. Kennedy’s tells the story of how the late Mike Vance, who worked personally with Walt Disney on the original Disney University and other projects, laughed and scoffed at standardized annual or quarterly ‘performance reviews.”

Mr. Lee’s management system replaces Performance Reviews with Personal Development Interviews.

Mr. Lee went on to explain.  “Just listen to what they’re called.  Which would you rather give… a Performance Review or a Personal Development Interview?  Would you rather review someone’s performance, or develop someone?

What if you’re on the receiving end?  Would you like your performance reviewed or would you rather have someone work proactively to develop you?

Which do you think gets better results, developing people and coaching them or reviewing their performance after the fact?

Traditional management focuses on catching people doing things wrong.  If every time I do something wrong the boss catches me, but he doesn’t catch me when I do things right, my creativity is stymied and I stop using my creativity, stop stepping out front, and stop helping the organization grow by using my creativity.

Conversely, when we start catching people doing things right, we encourage empowerment.  People start to do things in the organization.  Productivity improves on an ongoing basis.  Improvement doesn’t just come from management but from the whole organization interacting with each other and picking each other up.  The organization is permeated with a motivating environment.

Another benefit of this type of management is you create a learning organization.  Researchers tell us that as we move forward, people are going to stay with organizations where they have an opportunity to grow and learn.  There are going to be many more skilled positions than there are people to fill them.  And if there are a lot of skilled positions and not enough people to fill them, money isn’t going to make the difference.  Money is going to be a given.  You’re going to have to pay in the competitive market to get good people.  But they want to work in a place where they can grow, where they can enjoy themselves, where they can use their creativity to help the organization grow, and that happens in a learning organization.  That’s exactly why my company, American Retail Supply was named the Best Company to Work for in Washington, by Washington CEO Magazine.”

You can get Keith’s hardcopy book (not an e-book), How to Control Your Business and your Life, Proven Secrets to Creating Highly Productive Teams at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.